The use of a housing, or box, in vehicles for electrical components such as fuses and relays has become fairly common. These mixed use boxes (known as fuse relay boxes) provide an advantage by decreasing the space required in the vehicle's internals. Separate boxes for fuses and relays require more space. Additionally, separate boxes may require more bulky wiring to the boxes, as the fuse wires and any harnesses likely require a separate path to a fuse box from the path taken by relay wires and any harnesses to a relay box.
Fuse relay boxes, however, may bring their own complications. Placing fuses and relays in a single box is often accomplished through engineering specific areas of the box for a specific fuse or relay component. Wiring connecting those fuse-specific or relay-specific areas must also be routed to that area of the box. Thus, any changes to fuse placement and/or fuse wiring placement in the box, or relay placement, and/or relay wiring placement in the box, can only be made with difficulty, and would require reconfiguration of the entire box.
Because of the limited reconfiguration potential of these fuse relay boxes (which occasionally includes diodes as well, leading to yet another level of complication), these boxes are vehicle specific. They cannot be used in different vehicle models. A fuse relay box for a specific vehicle model with a fixed configuration of fuses and relays for that specific vehicle model usually cannot be used in a different vehicle model as that second vehicle model may have a different set of fuses, relays and diodes. A new box must be engineered.
Additionally, a fixed configuration box often lacks mounting flexibility because the box requires a specific mounting on the vehicle. Once design of that mounting is set, there is little or no ability to modify or move that mounting to accommodate new wiring and fuse or relay requirements.
Thus, it would be beneficial if a fuse relay box is provided that allows for flexible component placement throughout the box. Such a box would likely eliminate the need for fixed configuration fuse relay boxes and provide flexibility in configuring fuse, relay, diode and wire placement. It would also be beneficial if a fuse relay box could be provided with flexible mounting requirements, further simplifying vehicle design.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide fuse relay box apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a user configurable fuse relay box apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a user configurable fuse relay box apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture with flexible mounting requirements.